Jasper County Democrat, Volume 6, Number 51, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 26 March 1904 — "CAUSE AND EFFECT.” [ARTICLE]

"CAUSE AND EFFECT.”

Goodland Herald.

A Judge of the Chicago Courts recently said: “You may ransack the pigeonholes all over the city and country and look over such annual reports that are made up, but they will not tell half the truth. Not only are the saloons of Chicago responsible for the cost of the police force, the fifteen justice courts, Bridewell, but also the criminal courts, the county jail, a great portion of the Joliet State Prison, the long list of murder trials, the Coroner’s office, the morgue, the poor house, the reform school and road houses. In fact, go anywhere you please and you will find invariably that whiskey is at the root of evil. The gambling houses, the bad houses of the city are the direct out-growth of boon companions of drink. Of all the prostitutes of Chicego, the downfall of most every one can be traced to drunkenness on the part of their parents, husbands or on their own part. Of all the boys in the reform school at Pontiac and in the various reformatories about the city 95 per cent are the children of parents who died through drink, or became criminals through the same cause. Of the insane or demented cases disposed of here in the court every Thursday, a moderate estimate is 90 per cent is caused by aloohol. I saw estimated the other day that there is 10,000 destitute boys in Chicago who are not confined at all, but are running at large. I think that is a small estimate. Men are sent to jail for drunkenness, and what becomes of their families? The county jail and poor houses provides for them. It is a direct expense to the community. Generally speaking these families go to destruction. The boys turn out to be thieves and the girls and the mothers resort to the slums.”